Mixed Media Creative Critical Essay
In this essay, I will be exploring on network literacies. More specifically, I will be exploring on “participatory culture” and the current situation between Youtube and Facebook in terms of video sharing on both platforms and also how the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook can help them to be a more dominant player in the market. Lastly, how this may affect my contribution to the media
As Adrian Miles states, “Network literacy: is being able to participate as a peer within the emerging knowledge networks that are now the product of the Internet, and to have as ‘deep’ an understanding of the logics or protocols of these networks as we do of print.” (Miles, A. 203) The idea as mentioned by Miles of being a “peer” and simply not just another user signifies how people are not just going with the flow anymore, instead they now have their own opinions and understanding of the network systems and they have their say as well.
Social media boom in the recent years has caused business marketers to realize how a strong social media presence can boost their marketing and target audiences. Just in 2015, nearly twice as many marketers categorize social as their primary revenue source versus 2014. (Jerry, 2015) The development of social media has changed as time passed by. The progression from simply “likes” and engaging with friends has turned into gaining ”fans/followers” and recently, gaining advertisement and business results. More than often, social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram serves as the first contact point for potential customers. E.g.: A consumer finding out a product through mutual friends posting and then proceeding to do their own research on that particular brand.
In a recent survey done for 2015 state of marketing infographic, 66% of marketers believe social media marketing is core to their business. (Jerry, 2015) Social media teams will be able to engage customers via the use of Facebook, Twitter and attract more users.
Throughout the years, the way information spreads has changed drastically. Thus, it is hard to predict how the sharing of information with your peers will change in the next few years. What started out from simple texts and image sharing has turned into a more sophisticated and complex sharing way. This is shown through the rise of the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This has also evolved to include other broadcasting ways such as videos sharing and I will be exploring further into this.
The increase in the popularity of these platforms suggests that users prefer to consume content that is shorter. Social media platforms like Twitter have only a 140-character tweet limit, and it forces users to keep the posting short yet engaging. It is often easier to consume information if you’re not facing a large chunk of words. This is the same with video sharing platforms like Vine or Instagram, where the video limit is only 6 to 15 seconds long. In a video analytic study, it was found that shorter videos are better for getting people to watch; the longer the video, the less people would watch (Ruedlinger, 2012)
The concept of ‘participatory culture’, developed Henry Jenkins, is useful for interpreting changes happening in the media industry. Being associated with expectations about the future of media in society, participatory culture is often explained as the antithesis of consumer culture by rejecting the passivity of the consumer in the capitalist system, and inviting individuals to take an active role in the production, dissemination and interpretation of cultural goods (Jenkins, 2006). Benklr describes how the new information economy has enabled different groups of individuals to create out of box ideas, free of the top-down hierarchical models of organization, a shift that he refers to as ‘network culture’. (Benkler, 2006) This is shown especially in Youtube, a video hosting and sharing platform.
Youtube allows any users to be able to register an account and upload videos as long as you have an Internet connection. (Bryan, 2014) Marketers will begin leveraging YouTube as a key medium within their mix. Youtube has been underrated but is slowly taking a hold in the social market place while collaborating with many Youtubers. Youtube has invested millions into building Youtube space to train and support creators that have shown the potential to reach out to the mass audience.
Youtube has been offering bonuses for their content important creators to stay with them in recent years. Prominent Youtube stars and video producers are said to be offered higher payments and additional funding, in exchange for agreeing to a multi-year exclusivity period where content must appear solely on Youtube long before surfacing on rival video services. (Electronista, 2015)
Youtube is currently fighting it out with Facebook to be the top social media network.(Jarboe, 2014) Back in 2012, Facebook was not an option for marketers to advertise on. The norm was that content creators would produce a video, upload it to Youtube and then share it on Facebook. However, in 2014 the trend seems to move towards content creators uploading videos straight in Facebook, bypassing Youtube as a distribution platform.
In the beginning of 2014, Youtube clearly had the upper hand in terms of the number of videos shared on the platforms. However as the year progressed, there was a steady constant increase in the share of videos on Facebook, as well as the decrease of shares on Youtube. The share of interaction between the social media platforms also shows the decrease of shares for Facebook. As marketers will go for whichever media platform that is doing well and can help the market their products well, this is a serious threat for Youtube as it stands to lose out from this current trend. Thus, content marketers have increasingly begun uploading videos to Facebook directly, moving away from Youtube. The result of this? Youtube is steadily losing their place as a key platform in terms of distribution in the market. (James and James, 2014)
Buzzfeed is one such example. Buzzfeed started posting videos on Facebook about a year ago, statistics have shown the increase of page fans ever since then. Between the 8th of January and the 9th of January, there was an obvious point of altered trajectory in the number of page fans. This was probably the point when Buzzfeed started to switch over to Facebook, thus the steep change in statistics.
Facebook has recently passed 1.23 billion monthly users, and although Facebook seems like it has a long way to go before it catches up with Youtube, it has one distinct advantage – engagement. Facebook allows videos to be shared through your feeds. Instead of being the middleman, Facebook has decided to host videos on their social platform itself. With Youtube, you are only limited to liking and commenting the video itself, there isn’t much engagement on the platform. Facebook however lets you form a community and thus engagement levels are high as you share the videos directly to your peers. Facebook also states that with the launch of auto-play and the surge in mobile use, it’s important to focus on posting videos that grab people from the first frame of video. Shorter, timely video content tends to do well in news feed. The auto-play videos play silently in news feed until someone taps to hear sound. Fidji Simo, the Product Management Director for Video on Facebook, states that in June 2014, there has been an average of more than 1 billion video views on Facebook every day. Video on Facebook was built to be mobile first, and now more than 65% of video views are on mobile.
In June 2013, Instagram introduced their new feature, “Video on Instagram”. With Instagram massive audience (130 million monthly users), they created a new space where users could share their content. Advertisers also jumped on the opportunity to grow their brands with Instagram video. Within a day of the new feature being launched, more than 5 million videos had already been uploaded. (Ryan, 2013) It is also interesting to note that Instagram is under Facebook, and that this introduction of the video feature allows Instagram videos to be shared on Facebook easily. While there isn’t much competition in the market for such video sharing platforms, Instagram has created a lot of buzz and publicity for itself, taking a more dominant role among marketers.
It’s interesting to see the battle between Facebook and Youtube unfold, as well as the changes that Facebook is introducing. However, with the continuous increase of new content being created, both platforms could possibly combine and form one platform. Also, Facebook could allow their videos to be embedded into websites and this will allow media companies to continue functioning without being affected.
The Internet has allowed users to change the way they share content. Being network literate is the most basic skill one must have, especially in this industry. Instead of just consuming data, I must be able to keep up with the constant change and learn to adapt as the media landscape evolves. This will then enable me to use the media to my advantage and allow me to continue contributing towards the network.
REFERENCES
Benkler, Y. (2006) The wealth of networks: how social production transforms markets and freedom, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Bryan.M 2014, Participatory culture on YouTube: a case study of the multichannel network Machinima
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century Henry Jenkins 2009
Electronista,. ‘WSJ: Youtube Offering Bonuses To Keep Creators Away From Competitors | Electronista’. N.p., 2015. Web. Viewed 6 Feb 2015. <http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/12/08/youtube.star.courtship.by.vessel.prompts.attempt.by.google.to.keep.talent/#ixzz3RAOzLDIX>
James, Socialbakers.com,. ‘Facebook Video Is Now Bigger Than Youtube For Brands’. N.p., 2015. Web. Viewed 19 Feb 2015. <http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2335-facebook-video-is-now-bigger-than-youtube-for-brands>
Jarboe, Greg. ‘Is Youtube Really Bigger Than Facebook? The Numbers Say Yes’. ReelSEO. N.p., 2014. Viewed 6 Feb 2015. <http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-really-bigger-facebook/>
Jenkins, H. (2006) Fans, bloggers, and gamers: exploring participatory culture, New York: New York University Press.
Jerry 2015, Blog.wishpond.com,. ‘2015: State Of Marketing [Infographic] – Advanced Lead Generation Marketing Blog’. N.p., 2015. Web. Viewed 6 Feb 2015. http://blog.wishpond.com/post/109495654547/2015-state-of-marketing-infographic
Miles, A 2007, ‘Network literacy: The new path to knowledge’, Screen Education, no. 45
Ruedglinger, Ben 2012 ‘Does Length Matter? It Does For Video: 2k12 Edition’, Wistia
Ryan 2013, Content Marketing Institute,. ‘The Newest Social Media Content Features: What Marketers Need To Know’. N.p., 2013. Web. Viewed 18 Feb 2015. <http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/08/newest-social-media-content-features-marketers-need-know/>
